The menace of academic dishonesty

September 30, 2016

While many well-intentioned governmental programmes might have given rise to a research culture over the years, academic authorship in Pakistan has not yet achieved credibility at par with the international standards. It is even more disheartening to see the watchdog bodies overlook the fraudulent practices at the hands of both students and researchers that have largely resulted in this embarrassing situation.

A similar shortcoming in the official crackdown against all academic malpractices was recently highlighted by a media report that identified as many as four blacklisted academics on a panel of research supervisors approved by the Higher Education Commission (HEC). The fact that these supervisors were guilty of heavy plagiarism by the commission itself tells a lot about its resolve to purify the sector of academic dishonesty.

Despite being condemned as the “most widely recognised unethical lapse,” the giant of plagiarism has not yet been checked in Pakistan. Largely fuelled by the desire to gain academic degrees, this culture of copy-paste and cheating has already undermined the pursuit of learning in schools and colleges. At its most basic level, academic dishonesty can be seen at play during examinations when students rely on outside materials. Countless episodes of students employing unfair methods to succeed in school and board examinations have already been reported, but still not acted against by respective authorities. Even if these shortcuts may guarantee short-term successes to their perpetrators, they are still stripped off all opportunities to enhance their intellect. Although the menace should be kerbed at all levels, failing to do so at higher levels causes a significantly greater damage to not merely those who engage in scholastic corruption but also the country’s reputation. The urgency to act against all individuals who risk bad-naming their institutions, as well as Pakistan’s credibility in academic circles, has not yet been felt by the authorities. In our endeavours to produce a greater number of scholars in the shortest possible time, we seem to have forgotten the importance given to the quality of their authorship. Hence, even though Pakistan has succeeded to produce a plethora of PhDs, it has done so at the cost of questionable research, plagiarised content, and misleading, at times, fake, results.

It is the responsibility of Pakistani — public and private — universities to establish golden standards that can be utilised to produce original content of high quality. Nonetheless, since hardly any institute has claimed significant successes in doing so, bodies like the HEC should step forward with tools of their own. In addition to providing universities with an access to mechanisms that detect plagiarism, government can also help by setting comprehensive standards in lieu of the glaring loopholes in the existing framework. It is to the country’s misfortune that every now and then, some of its eminent scholars find themselves under fire over plagiarism accusations. While the authorities are to be praised for taking action against such individuals, ranging from cancelled degrees, revoked grants and even getting blacklisted, they should also be questioned why their plagiarised content was accepted in the first place.

This non-seriousness with which the education and research sectors are continually treated by the governmental bodies highly facilitates their shambolic state. Had Pakistan been more concerned with its intellectual standing, its institutions would have long produced a breed of more aware, more intelligent scholars instead of mere degree-holders. Even now, if developed, the education sector still holds the capacity to help the country in addressing its critical unemployment crisis. However, such developments certainly call for more effective reforms on top of a rigorous implementation of the existing ones.*